RECORD VIEW welcomes Morrisons' revamp of business and hopes it is a sign that the relentless quest in UK business for short-term profit may finally be on the wane.

In fact, it could mark a sea-change in the way big businesses are run – not to mention the cost of our grocery bills.

Morrisons
warned that profits in the coming year would be about half the level of
last year and shareholders have been put on notice that they will get smaller dividends in years to come.

This is, of course, coming from a firm who are nearly £180million in the red and had little option but to cut future payouts to shareholders and cut their prices to win back customers.

But if this marks a break from the dash for fast profit that has blighted the growth of business in Britain since the quick-buck mentality of the 1980s, then it has to be a good thing.

For
too long, if each quarterly report did not show an increase in profits,
boards screamed “efficiency saving” – read job cuts or wage cuts – in order to get the upward trend again.

That attitude has cut the legs from business development in Britain and left employees worse off and Britain more divided as a society.

Most of the children living in poverty at the moment are in working households, blighted by low wages and poor job security.

Meanwhile,
on the retail front, if Morrisons are going to slash food prices to compete with the likes of Lidl and Aldi then that has to be a good thing
too – provided it’s not the farmers and suppliers who take the hit.

Running
a supermarket chain in Britain was, for a long time, a licence to print
money. But the discount chains who have burst on to the scene have blown apart the status quo.

That’s good news for customers – and so is any suggestion that the relentless quest in UK business for short-term profit may finally be on the wane.

Deserving of better

The families of the 16 men killed in the North Sea Super Puma helicopter crash in 2009 are right to be angry.

It took five years to hold the fatal accident inquiry into their deaths – and that is far too long.

Indeed, the accident was so long ago that many of the witnesses could, through no fault of their own, remember little or nothing about it.

What hope was there of shedding proper fresh light on what happened when so much time had passed by?

This cannot be a sensible way for the legal system to operate.

And it’s hard not to sympathise with the families when they accuse the various businesses and regulators of wanting to “bury the inquiry”.

No one should go to their work and not come back. No family should have to wait half a decade for an inquiry into a loved one’s death.